Cameron 'entitled to private past'

Tory leader David Cameron has admitted he had done things in his past he "should not have done and regretted" over allegations he smoked cannabis as a schoolboy at Eton.

He refused to confirm the allegations, published in a new autobiography, that he was disciplined for smoking the drug at the prestigious private school.

Dressed in a brown round-necked jumper and beige cords, Mr Cameron appeared relaxed about the allegations as he spoke from his constituency home in Dean, Oxfordshire. He said: "I do believe that politicians are entitled to a past that is private and remains private."

According to the book Cameron: The Rise Of The New Conservative by James Hanning and Francis Elliott, the future Tory leader was caught up in a drugs scandal at Eton in 1982, weeks before his O-level exams.

The biography is being serialised in the Mail on Sunday and Independent on Sunday, but Mr Cameron told reporters he would not be "making any commentary" on what was in the newspapers.

He said: "I'm not issuing a denial, what I am saying is that I think it's an important principle that politicians are entitled to a private past. Today, I'm a Member of Parliament, I'm someone putting myself forward to be Prime Minister.

"You are perfectly entitled to come and follow me round, put cameras up my nose, have a good look at me, even come and watch me cook Sunday lunch if you like, but I wouldn't recommend it. But I do think you are entitled to a private past, that is an important principle and one that I'm going to stand by."

The book alleges Eton authorities called police in after suspicions that a number of pupils had been involved with the drug, and seven pupils were eventually expelled. Drugs squad police searched pupils' rooms for evidence of cannabis, which was thought to have been smoked in parties where groups of around 10 boys gathered to listen to reggae records.

Mr Cameron allegedly confessed to smoking cannabis after being hauled in front of headteacher Eric Anderson when he was named by another pupil. Because he had only smoked the illegal substance, and not traded it as others were doing, he escaped expulsion, the book claims.

Instead he was "gated" - confined to school grounds - for two weeks, fined and ordered to copy out hundreds of lines of Latin verse, the book says. If true, the revelations would make Mr Cameron the first leader of a major party and prospective Prime Minister to have been shown to have indulged in illegal drugs.